Counseling Series: Communication and Anger

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00:04

Can you show me because we're gonna use some hermeneutics Can you show me anywhere in the

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Old Testament where that word perpetual is not perpetual because again, I understand you're appealing again

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There you go, it's not

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I will mute you because it's not your show you asked a question I'm gonna give you the answer Genesis 6 for the word

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Olam is used referring to those who are of old Deuteronomy, I'll get just rattle off all the ones where it's used not referring to perpetual

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Genesis 6 for Deuteronomy 32 7 Joshua 24 to 1st

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Samuel 27 8 Job 22 15 Psalm 20 24 7 24 9 25 6 41 13 77 9 90 verse 2 103 verse 17 106 verse 48 119 52 1 feet of 43 3rd verse 3

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Proverbs 8 23 Proverbs 22 28 Proverbs 23 10 and Ecclesiastes 110 should

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I go on for more? blah blah blah blah blah To answer your questions your host from striving for eternity ministries

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Blah blah blah blah blah. I always love that one. Welcome. This is Apologetics live.

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I'm your host Andrew rapport. We are live. We're here to answer any questions you have about God and the

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Bible We can answer every single question that you have on the subject of God and the

01:58

Bible if you doubt that Well, then just come right on in go to apologetics live .com

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Scroll down to you see a little stream yard icon. Click on the duck. Join us. Just remember one thing.

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I Don't know is a perfectly good answer All right So what we're gonna cover tonight is we're gonna start our counseling series that we're gonna do all through September We're gonna be dealing it start us off with something.

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None of you ever have to deal with Communication problems right a no one deals with that We're gonna deal with communication.

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We're gonna deal with issues of anger. Those are the two that we have scheduled for tonight We're gonna cover other issues in the future

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We're going to cover marriage and parenting next week Anxiety and depression the week after that Money and sexual sins possibly after that We'll see how far we go because we may end up dropping one off and picking it up So we will see how far we get with the different issues

02:58

Drew is not here, but I'm gonna have a new kind of co -host here Mr. Dan craft.

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How are you, sir? I'm doing well. How are you Andrew better than I deserve? so Dan is

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Possibly coming in on board with striving for attorney. We're still talking about it having him come in as one of the speakers

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He did an outstanding job in Arizona I don't know if those if the videos are the videos online.

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Do you know they are? I have I have posted the original live stream on edited live stream and I've also posted a mild a slightly edited version to eliminate some of the places where I got tongue -tied and Actually where you were weeping though, right?

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Cut out the entire message And I also I also embedded the

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PowerPoint presentation Into the video itself. So you're not looking at the video of a video

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So that is available on my youtube channel and as well as on my channel on rumble

04:04

Okay, and so you're the easiest way to get to the any of my presentations though is to go to seven foot apologist comm

04:11

Speaking and you'll see video links to just about everything that I've done Seven foot apologist because you're only four foot tall.

04:19

That's that's good five foot five foot twenty four to be exact If I put I had one friend who said he was six foot twelve because he just he hated to actually say seven foot

04:29

Yeah, I had a guy who said he says how tall you is and I said, I'm 524 says you ain't no five feet

04:35

I said, you're right. I'm 612. He goes I would have thought you were seven foot at least So in we usually start off with it kind of in the news section, but I Figured this would be really not in the news, but interesting.

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Well in the news what we could do Is we they did finally release the 900 page?

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I don't know diary or whatever from the the girl that did the shooting at the Christian school. Mm -hmm.

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And Yeah, they said the reason they couldn't release it is because this girl had details of her plan of attacking the school and someone who read all 900 pages said the thing that was missing was

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Any details of the attack on the school, of course? No, hmm. Yes, I guess what they really didn't want it for is because it was completely laced with I mean

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I read through some of it completely Laced with white hatred

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You know transgenderism and all that and blaming her, you know Christianity and conservatives but I Know I know a pair of our guests already heard this but you know, this would be fun

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I was hoping to watch Drew's face when I read this But I wanted to read a text that I got not once but I've got this now three times

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And I'm gonna read the text I got then I'll read my response and I just want you to know Even after my response

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I actually got two more texts After the response

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I gave so this will be fun for you. But this was a text I got Hi Andrew, this is

06:22

Maya with the Jewish Democrats We know there is a lot at stake in this election and we want to thank you for being a voter

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Can we count on your support for Kamala Harris for president As that starts choking

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Paid for by JDC a pack not authorized by any candidate or candidates candidate committee

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So here's my response Dan. My response was there is a lot at stake and that is why no

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Jewish person should or can vote for the Democrats Biden opened the door for for war against Israel by freeing up six million dollars to Iran Who funded the attack that funded the

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October 7th attack? The Democrats have been foaming anti -semitism So yes, you can count on me and every

07:23

Jewish person that I know to vote for Trump Even many many that previously voted for Biden, please shut down your organization immediately

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I'm sure they'll get right on that. The response I got was okay. Have a great day and a week later

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She texted me the same thing under a different name that that one Jordan and then

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I got another one Moments later from from Leah, so they they obviously didn't read what

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I said Well, they didn't put you in their database they're just you know, you know how that works, right?

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Yeah, it's all robo robo I Was quite shocked. It does tell me that they're there day after foaming anti -semitism.

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They're desperate to get the Jewish vote back They just don't want it to do publicly. I mean they could have

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Taken my governor Josh Shapiro and made him the vice president pick because he was he he was giving up his position on Israel To get that that spot and then they rejected him because he's

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Jewish so hmm But let we will have

08:32

Aaron Brewster will be coming in late for regulars here You know that Aaron is teaching on on Thursday nights.

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So he comes in a bit late. He will be joining us And I should say now if you guys can just share this out right now on different social media

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So that others will know about this Let me first bring in someone who might if you're a regular listener at the

08:54

Christian podcast community. I'll bring in. Mr Anthony Russo Anthony is with grace and peace radio

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He hasn't been doing it for a while because he's been a bit busy We might hear why but he recently became an

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ACBC counselor And he also is now joining striving for eternity as one of our speakers.

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So welcome to Apologize live Anthony. Thank you very much. It's great to be here.

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Good to be back behind the microphone with you Yeah, I was just gonna say that and I don't

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I think this is your first time on Apologize live I think it is. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. All right, and I'm really excited

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Because the next well two guests I'm gonna bring in is actually my pastor and his wife who are both

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ACBC counselors Pastor Dan and Robin Scogin. Welcome to Apologize live

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And you're muted He's gonna go get it

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Thank you for having us so The purpose of this is to talk about different counseling issues

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And we the four of us or the five of us really in the four of you all

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ACBC counselors Aaron Anthony and then Dan and Robin all being

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ACBC counselors we came up with different topics that you guys thought as counselors deal with often and we figured an order of of Kind of importance or ones that we thought

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You know deal with a lot Anthony you had the idea of starting with kind of an introduction to counseling which really was like duh.

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Why didn't I think of that? I Guess we take for granted, you know, what counseling is and what biblical counseling is, but let me just first throw this one out

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I'll start with you, you know Anthony What is biblical counseling?

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And when we say that there's people that go. Oh, so your way is the only way What would what in your mind would make counseling biblical versus not biblical?

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Yeah, that's a that's a great question a great way to kick it off First of all

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It's helpful to understand that there's a there's a spectrum. There's a continuity line of of Counseling of how do you deal with life's problems and issues, right?

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In the 1800s or so you started to see the the secular counseling developed through Freud and others

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After him and so that whole model took over prior to that It was really more of called soul care and we even have one of the

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Puritans writing about how to deal with life issues Richard Baxter in his

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Christian directory but then through the Enlightenment and so forth and secularism

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Then you had the secular counseling. Well, then And that really said look

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Pastors ministers aren't equipped to deal with life issues Weak we can do this better.

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And so That's a short version, but then on the other end of the spectrum you've got this this biblical counseling which says no no

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No, we're we're we're creating the image of God God made us God gave us a book God's given us everything we need for life and godliness.

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The scriptures are sufficient where the scriptures deal with life's problems and Then in the middle of that there are some who say you know what?

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This is good over here. This is good over here I'm gonna try to marry these two and make this work and that's often called

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Christian counseling or integrationist because integrating so that's really kind of the main spectrum of counseling

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So as biblical counselors, what we do is again We bring the Word of God to bear instead of as someone has said

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Instead of man trying to solve man's problems from within the the fishbowl

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We go to the Lord into the his word and say, okay. Well, what does God say about us?

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He made us So what does his word say and and he's the lawgiver and so forth. So that's kind of the the difference between those

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We're not Biblical counseling is not Therapeutic as you you think of it

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Many of us I think most Many of us are not like we don't do state licensure anything like that.

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It's not that we Practice therapy without a license. This is really important. We don't do that We are

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Christians Discipling in the Christian faith. So what we're doing is presenting the

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Christianity and how the Bible tells us to live All right.

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So pastor Dan and Robin. I should just mention this actually want to introduce you the pastor

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Dan you've been pastoring 26 years now, I believe at Oxford Valley Chapel in Levittown, New Pennsylvania so almost said

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New Jersey after living in New Jersey for 53 years. I still sometimes say but you know and Anthony and I are both out of New Jersey, but so First off one thing

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I should say is yeah So for you and for Robin how long have you guys been doing a

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CBC counseling? And the question I'd I'd have for you is you know when it comes to an introduction of counseling

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How would you see the difference between a biblical counseling we do with a CBC versus secular counseling

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I think I got my certificate back in about 1992 and Robin Followed me after that.

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So we've been doing this for a little while There's been several differences that we've seen historically

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Within even the counseling movement biblical counseling movement back in the day

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Coming from Lafayette, Indiana were Bill Good and Bill Smith were primarily the ones putting that together as the certifying agency of CCEF they were

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The model there was that going back to Paul and Romans 15

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Where he says you are competent to counsel He the model was more of all lay people can do it

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He was they were on the idea that The Bible was sufficient and it was just basically a ministry of the local church now that has changed even within the biblical counseling movement and people are

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Changing it to become an occupation to support their families

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Yep There we go. I had to find the right button there a question that Fatima has for us and She is from the

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Philippines. So it is 8 in the morning there So 8 or 9

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I think so her question is is it advisable for non -christians to consider biblical counseling

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For their life issues. I don't know which of you might want to take that one But what do you think is it advisable for non -christians to consider biblical counseling for their life issues?

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Well, let me jump in and say yes I would absolutely hope that she would for several reasons because first of all we believe in the sufficiency of the

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Bible To meet the problems of man is first or second Peter one says

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He's given us all things that pertain to life and godliness, so As was spoken earlier by Dan, I believe it was

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I'm not sure God created us God knows our problems and God has the answers to fix us

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But that would be the felt need I would like to think that if she came in seeking biblical counseling

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She would realize her real need and that would be her Faith and trust in Jesus Christ Yes, Jesse is saying it's a good open door to evangelize and I would think

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I mean my view would be yeah I mean, they're you're gonna get a better counseling because the world's the world style of counseling is really

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You know, they have it backwards. We would say from the scripture you start with your thinking get your thinking, right?

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Your feelings will be right. You'll do right where the world says no let's let's talk about doing doing right and then you'll eventually feel right and then you'll think right and That is a great way to keep people coming back to you as a counselor

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Yeah, and and another thing too if I could throw this in there is Like Dan said, you know, it's great for all those reasons but also

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Really we want to show people the beauty of Christ the beauty of what life is meant to be

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What God has called us to and what he offers us in Christ and the freedom and the grace and the forgiveness and all those

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Blessings. So yeah, so exactly. We want to share that with people and so really when when a non

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Christian comes for biblical counseling We get to lay all that out and explain it and that can take you know

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Months you know, whatever weeks or months and ultimately a person can either

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Choose Okay, I want to pursue this. I want to know God more that this God of the

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Bible more and then it really does you know become Evangelism and then

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Lord willing they get saved and it becomes discipleship but we don't want people to to just walk away with Unbelievers to walk away with just life tips, you know because ultimately

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We don't we don't want them to just end up in in hell, you know, we want to point them to the

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Savior. So But definitely yeah, great question Yeah, so so let's get into the discussion.

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The first topic that we had is Communication and I know no one has ever had communication issues

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Maybe we can get big Dan to explain, you know, his communication issues. He had with Shaq on a court, you know

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Because I think you may have had For folks who don't watch bad basketball

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Shaq is a very well known I had to be told this but Shaq is a very well known player in basketball

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You had communication issues with him didn't you Well, you know the first communication problem we had was, you know, he just did not understand that You know when he came into the paint that he was not, you know

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I was not just gonna roll over or step aside and let him abuse the rim. That just wasn't gonna happen

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So I had to let him know, you know That's not gonna happen here. And of course, he was a bit agitated afterwards

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In which case we exchanged some words and you know, the rest is history I Mean I'm trying, you know, he was he's very stubborn about it

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He kept trying to dunk on me and I kept saying no you won't be doing that today Not many people can say they stuffed on on Shaq I'm sure but so I mean communication is

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I think a good one to a good topic to start on because if we think about it

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Everything else we're gonna deal with think about anger marriage parenting

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You know a lot of these are gonna come back to communication issues And so a lot of the problems

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I I think in counseling Is is comes to communication fact when I was in seminary that the two areas they said anytime

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I'm married I'm counseling a married couple the two areas that I'm gonna be counseling in is communication and money and I kind of have found that to be pretty true

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So, you know, let me let me ask this of pastor Dan first and say, you know, why what do you think is

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The cause what we have so many communication issues Between people. Well, I think the primary reason

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I know this is just a broad word, but it's sin Going way back to the Garden of Eden, you know when we disobeyed

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God, you know We see all kinds of brokenness right at the get -go and it is just perpetuated

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Robin anything you want to you want to add I Think our society does not hurt.

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It does not help our communication. I don't think Social media and other things has just made it our communication more harsh

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More self -centered and more thoughtless and I think that that filters into our relationship and our marriages

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That's a good point. I didn't I didn't even think about bringing that up Is the social media aspect because I think that that probably has changed a lot of the way people communicate.

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I mean People will communicate online typing and say things they would never say in person

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Yeah, oh, yeah We have a word for that called keyboard warriors, right

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Keyboard commando. Yeah. Yeah So What I think is pretty interesting that when you take into account the whole social media thing, you know

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God gave us, you know to the old saying goes he gave us two ears two eyes and only one mouth

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But yet social media seems to invert that and when you get behind the keyboard, you know

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You you tend to speak more or output ten times more than you take in You know as I as I interact with people online or you know

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Just in my own family or whatever I find that a lot a large part of the problem of miscommunication is failure to listen

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And a failure a lack of desire to understand the other person

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It seems like we usually come to especially when you're talking about, you know Doctrinal issues doctrinal disagreements or whatever worldview issues

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We come fully entrenched in our own position and we're only interested in defending our own view not learning from the other person and saying

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Hey, is there something I can learn from this other guy? Even though perhaps he may come from a different theological camp that I do

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Give it cease the person is gonna say, of course I'm gonna I'm gonna be ten times more online because I got eight fingers and two thumbs.

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So that's ten Precisely But you you raise a really good

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Issue with communication because I think what most people think of when we talk communication is me doing the talking

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Let me put this question out how important is listening Yeah, I was gonna say we both both

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Rob and I said James one, you know be swift to hear Slow to speak and slow to wrap so swift to hear slow to speak

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Amen Yeah, I mean For some people it seems that comes easier than others

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I'm just thinking of I'm thinking of the people that that I have come across where they're

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You could tell they're not really listening because they're just waiting for them to get the next line in you know, they're just thinking of what they want to say next as As a counselor

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How how do you deal with that? Like how do you deal with someone that they come to you for help?

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And they think they got all the answers and they're they're trying to they're trying to Tell you what what they should do

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Have you had that happen? Yeah, I think

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You know one of the things that's that's interesting with with biblical counseling Versus the secular model is in the secular model oftentimes.

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It's The the hour or so is spent in the person who's coming in for counseling doing doing all the talking and There is a lot of that up front as The the biblical counselor.

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Here's what what the life problem is is and that sort of thing and maybe ask some questions but Fundamentally one of the big differences also is that in biblical counseling?

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Week to week to week. It's not the person coming in who's doing a lot of or most of the talking.

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It's the biblical counselor and that's because It's biblical counseling is

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Christian discipleship. Like I said earlier, so it you're trying to to equip people with with what does

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God say so Again if a person comes in and they they may have to be

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Told that and explained that and it's not that you're just trying to run roughshod over them and that you don't care what?

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Happened week to week to week you you do but most of that hour is spent in well

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Let's see what God says about your problem So that's a fundamental difference there that Dan craft, how would

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Proverbs what insight could would Proverbs give to us? well, as we were sitting here talking about this the

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The first verse that came to mind is Proverbs 18 to which says a fool does not delight in understanding

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But in revealing his own mind, which goes to just goes to show you You know, we're so quick to just spit things out and let other people deal with the consequences

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And you contrast that with Proverbs 1 7, which is you know, the fear of Yahweh is the beginning of knowledge but fools despise wisdom and instruction and it's just You see foolishness abounding on social media like leave tick -tock out of it

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Just all the all the foolish videos just the things that people say alone Is well enough to the reveal the foolishness bound up in the heart of all these, you know

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These adult children roaming around on social media well Yeah, as Dan Pastor Dan Robin it so much of the

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So much of the counseling is gonna is deals with communication issue or a lot of it seems to deal with communication issues and so I Want to focus in on first the listening part, you know

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Are there? Are there things we can help people with learning to be better listeners?

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Are there things? you know you get a husband and wife that come to you and They're just talking right past each other

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What kind of things would help a couple like that to start to learn to listen to one another better?

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Well, I'll start by tying that into the other question about communication it is a skill

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Communication is a skill just like anything else. Some people naturally are

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Quick to speak and some people might be slow to speak Some people might be more thoughtful some people more careless doesn't matter.

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It's not an excuse That behavior it explains it but doesn't excuse it

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Communication is a skill So then tying that into something else that was said a lot of times people that come to us

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Come as a last resort Because they've already tried

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Secular counselors who in their case was not able to help them because they're

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Listening and maybe validating their feelings Rather than helping them to change their thought patterns

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And so they come to us once we start explaining work in this case how communication works

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How it comes from the heart according to Matthew how you can't control your mouth so you have to control your heart how your words matter and once you start doing those things and they see that it works and the relationship is changing from hostile to Cordial to sweet They continue to grow and want to hear more

30:18

And then some of those specific specific skills that we would use Would be to have them repeat back

30:25

What the person just said? So, you know many times we're discipling

30:32

Two people one person will say something and then I'll look at the other person say now

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Tell me what you just heard and it is surprising how many times they don't get it, right?

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And and there's two reasons for that person a may not be clearly

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Communicating what wants to be said and that sometimes is the case, but more often than not person

30:58

B Just has not Developed the skill to listen for understanding

31:03

Most of us just listen for a retort how to rebuff how to defend but we truly don't listen for understanding

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So to answer your question, one of the techniques we use is we just say repeat back what this other person just said

31:19

That's that's a really good piece of advice because I Remember when

31:24

I was in seminary take my first counseling class and Professor just said okay when you're if you're communicate if you're sitting down counseling a couple

31:34

There's five levels of communication There's what the husband thinks he said

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There's what the wife thinks she said what the husband heard What the wife heard and then what really was said

31:51

You know and that's where the confusion is is that it's just because it's clear in in our head

31:58

Doesn't mean that it's always clear in someone else's right because sometimes I know a lot of times

32:07

People will will have a context in their head. You know, this happens a lot of married couples where you're thinking something and You just say something to your spouse

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And not realizing in pride any context and it's like what are you thinking?

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And so yeah that that there's there's a lot of different factors To that I think that you know when

32:33

I teach evangelism training One of the things I teach is exactly what you said pastor Dan is the fact that it's easy to listen for retort it's easy to listen to figure out how to get jab in or Say something just to to You know

32:50

Basically like attack someone's what they're saying Versus when I what I do is ask questions, but and the reason

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I do that is because questions make us think differently We're gonna respond differently because we don't want anyone throwing darts at what we're saying

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We're listening to throw darts at what they're saying. We don't want them doing it to us. We think through it better So when I evangelize

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I want people thinking so I tend to ask a lot of questions just for that reason and one of my favorite questions to Suggest to people is

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What did you mean by that? Just give the other person a chance

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There are so many times that we hear things wrong or we read it wrong And if we just say what did you mean by that that really clears up?

33:38

50 % of arguments before they even get going Now Dan craft there's probably a book you're thinking with that question a

33:48

Couple hey if I want if I if I may I want to interject my own little a little personal anecdote here I had a coach in junior college who was

33:58

Extremely difficult to he was a very difficult personality very

34:05

Let's just say yeah He had hit the mouth of a drunken sailor and he had no compunctions about just you know

34:13

Going up one side and down the other and just chewing you out And I had a teammate take me aside once and he said and this is a lesson that has stuck with me for you

34:23

Know over over 25 years. He says Dan. He's yeah, I know he's a difficult person, but he's a great coach

34:30

Focus on what he's saying not on how he's saying it Now and I'm I want to be quick to point out that this is something that is good when you're on the receiving end

34:40

Not when you're on the delivering end You shouldn't expect your audience to focus on your on your words and ignore your delivery, right?

34:48

But I think it's really helpful at times to just be you know, try to filter that out say, okay What is this person actually trying to say to me regardless of how they're doing it?

34:59

What is he trying to say and then get into what Robin said ask questions, right? Like what do you mean by that?

35:04

And am I do I under you know echo back to them, right? These are you know standard communication things to echo. Am I understanding you correctly you're saying such -and -such and so that makes them feel listened to and hopefully, you know kind of Takes the the the escalation down a little notch

35:19

And that's exactly right because many of the frustrations that we hear in the counseling session are

35:26

With multiple people is that sometimes they just don't feel understood They've not truly been able to I just don't think he or she really understands what

35:36

I'm Going through her feelings. So you're right Dan, you know just that ability to be

35:45

Acknowledged is goes a long ways. So you want to do a Bill Clinton to say I feel your pain.

35:53

I Think people also nowadays tend to be more petty and more harsh more than more than past generations pettiness and harshness and also teaching people first Peter and Proverbs that love covers a multitude of sin and to choose your battles if it repeats or if it's strong Go ahead and fight that battle, but there's so many little things that we can let go.

36:21

We don't always have to be right and You know,

36:26

I think you know, I'll probably bring this up when we talk about marriage, but it really Gets into a communication issue as well.

36:32

There's a book. I often quote the title of it that the book itself Probably I haven't read the book, but knowing the author

36:39

I'm not thinking it's all that solid but the title captures a lot of what I deal with in marriage counseling

36:46

I'm perfect. I just want my spouse to be also And that's so much of the marriage counseling but a lot of that is the communication it's like you have one one per one party that That is or sometimes both parties that are just looking like I'm not doing anything wrong.

37:05

It's all the other person Yeah, and a lot of times in marriage you have, you know couples that are having serious communication issues.

37:13

They say well, you know I know a couple that they described their relationship this way for the first 15 years of our marriage

37:20

You know, they said the two become one flesh. We were just trying to figure out which one we were gonna become. Yeah Yeah, yeah,

37:27

I mean I Think that we do not take put enough thinking into when we come to someone who's a counselor of Just really listening to what they're saying

37:43

I mean, I think Robin you said it well in the fact that typically when a person especially if it's marriage

37:50

It's typically by the time a couple comes to a counselor for counseling It's it's usually kind of almost too late very often you know because they've they've already become so embittered with one another and their their their language with one another communication with each other is so filled with barbs and digs

38:13

That by the time they get to the counselor It's kind of almost like a lot of times the last -ditch effort like okay we've we've tried everything else what we're gonna do this just to Because we got to try and figure it out it almost as if going to the counselor is gonna be the magic pill

38:29

That's gonna solve all our communication issues that we haven't been dealing with for all these years That's a double -edged sword.

38:36

I agree with you The other end of that is when they for the first time see progress if they are willing to work at it

38:45

That marriage has changed 100 % of the time they're not willing to work on it and think that you can just give them that magic pill

38:53

Then there's no hope because the bad habits are there But when they see after years of no hope that hope finally there

39:02

That's exciting. And I also wanted to comment on what you said earlier about I'm I'm awesome.

39:09

I just wish my spouse was to or something like that. I'm perfect. I just wish my spouse was to yeah that just reminds me that the

39:19

I love when Dan counsels and he talks about the greater sinner Because we always think our sin is smaller

39:27

I mean I said just not as bad as he does or she does whether you're at work or a marriage or a church your sin your

39:38

Your things that you do seem small and everyone else and when you're talking to a couple

39:44

Especially and they're both talking and you see both of them as being wrong, but they each think the other person is wrong if we looked at ourselves as Back in the log and being the greater sinner, that's another life -changing thing.

40:01

Yeah Anthony do you have any thoughts on this? Yeah, you know one of the things

40:06

I mean, this is all all great stuff and the one thing I was thinking of too is one of the foundations of that whole aspect of communication that Is that it's it's on the husband

40:22

It's on the Christian husband to set the tone for pretty much everything in the home whether it's communication

40:30

Everything you know and so Part of setting up that proper communication and either avoiding this whole issue or Helping to resolve it is that it's men.

40:44

It's it's on us Christian men Christian husbands. It's on us to set that communication so part of that is

40:51

Again, just all the basics right being in the word being in prayer being godly first Corinthians 13

40:58

Love believes all things. So having that instead of getting defensive going Okay.

41:04

Well, wait a minute. Is there some truth here? Well, what's going on or Trying to be shepherding and saying well what's going on here?

41:13

You know, what's what's behind this? What's Did you know did my wife have a bad day?

41:19

And now she's just you know She's just venting because she's had a rough day or someone so it's not really at me or whatever the case is

41:28

You know a lot of that's just common sense. It's not I mean the secular folks would say some of the same things but The Christian responsibility is on is on us well, let me let me throw an example out for you guys and I don't know who want we want to deal with it first, but Let me give a scenario.

41:46

So My mother who it was not a Christian, but you mentioned the venting

41:54

That was her what she would say her way of dealing with things and as a as a child growing up in the house

42:01

I mean we were Basically, like after dinner we all ran and ran to our rooms because if you happen like if someone upset my mom

42:11

And you just happen to be in the room You're the one that's gonna get the earful and you don't even know what you did wrong and you might not have done anything wrong, but you were gonna hear it and if you make the mistake as I did early on when my parents first got married and like it my stepmother

42:28

I should say so people realize but You know all of a sudden You know, you try talking back to explain that you know, and that makes it even worse

42:39

So but that is a common thing. We see a common way people communicate is that they'll claim they're venting

42:45

The culture will say that this is an acceptable means of communication From a

42:51

Christian perspective is is venting a a Good means of communication

43:03

No because you know, we're to be in control of our emotions and so whether we

43:10

We vent and just kind of let them out in a in an outburst.

43:16

Well, that's not That's not biblical. That's not Christian. That's not maybe that's not even loving the other person and so forth and then also it's also not biblical to to just Stew and be the silent treatment and let it simmer and all that.

43:31

So So no, neither one of those is is that way Pastor Dana Robin.

43:40

Well, I was kind of thinking that you know venting just getting it off my chest

43:49

You know as you said that there's you know, various techniques and things that people say that's okay

43:55

The only trouble is is that you know Christ said that it was from the abundance of the heart So now we're back to a heart issue and You know, whether it's you know, we'll talk about marriage later

44:10

Or jobs or pick any scenario in life living in a broken world. There is always something negative about it

44:17

So, you know we can come home from work and just do nothing about complain how bad

44:26

Work is and everything about it including the commute to and from and all the idiots on the road

44:31

Or we can be thankful that we have a job Thankful that we didn't get in an accident and there's just a whole

44:39

Attitude adjustment that you know, we're jumping quite a few sessions into this

44:44

But just as we're throwing these ideas out here, you know, everyone says what's God's will for me?

44:50

We're first Thessalonians makes it pretty clear You know, we're to be thankful and everything for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for us

44:57

So to have an attitude of gratitude is something that will if we can get that person to embrace that Mindset that spiritual poverty then the venting is going to sound different Hmm, maybe just evaporate.

45:13

I Would add that two thoughts Ken Sandy's peacemaker has the spectrum and there's clamming up and there's exploding neither one of those are

45:25

Gonna solve the problem. So you need to go in the middle which would be communicating and then good and angry

45:32

I love that book talks about anger, which would be venting is like vomit

45:38

Once that's on there. You're leaving a stench behind So keep those words inside and Takes work to process what you're thinking and then say it

45:51

That's if someone comes in and that's an issue and they want help with it But don't say that to someone venting at me at work

46:00

But how I mean a lot of it what I'm hearing from you guys a lot of this really does come to heart issues

46:08

Pride issues whether you're venting or silent treatment. I mean, I think people who do the silent treatment the issue there is

46:18

It's a it's really a pride issue. I'm gonna I'm gonna punish you because I don't like something you're doing

46:23

I'm gonna punish you by not talking to you It's a lot of this is going right back and I think we're gonna come up with a lot of it

46:31

Back to what Dan started with right? It's sin If there was no sin, we wouldn't need counselors

46:38

We wouldn't need counseling But but that is then, you know

46:44

Why from way back even to the Reformers as was mentioned? they had care of the souls and then the

46:52

Puritans called it basically the same thing soul care and That's where again you know

46:59

Jay Adams kind of Codified and try to solidify and organize, you know biblical discipleship because it all goes back to the heart and I know that there's a whole contingent of people that disagree with us, but You know, it's all about the heart and all this pride and everything we just talked about, you know comes from the heart you know, it's funny because People would would say okay biblical counseling versus psychology and yet What is psychology?

47:35

Well ology we know is study of well, then what psyche is the soul? So it's the study of the soul

47:42

And yet whether they teach in psychology that there is no soul So what are you studying?

47:51

But you know as we think through The Difficulty that people have and I think we think most often a family or co -workers

48:04

Family just because you spend more you spend you know each other's buttons to push

48:10

But you have that with co -workers a lot of times of the co -workers There's people who

48:18

Will just get under someone else's skin They the way they communicate

48:24

I'm sure that Everyone listening has somebody that they could that they're thinking of that just like yes.

48:30

I know exactly who that person is If we want to be good communicators if we want to improve our

48:37

Communication even with someone we work with or someone in our family that is just Gets under our skin what are some things we could do and And and things we could practice

48:51

I know you mentioned the idea of okay if you're in a counseling session Repeat back and and that's something

48:56

I guess we could We could practice this if someone says something if we say something and they respond other than we'd expect we could ask

49:05

What is it? You think I said so we could we could kind of encourage the Repeating back.

49:11

But are there other things that we could do to help people who are Maybe for the first time thinking

49:18

I have to work on my communication skills. I have to work on my my How I communicate with someone maybe that rubs me the wrong way.

49:28

I have a couple thoughts if you don't mind So I do I'm gonna talk anyway, unless you hit that mute button

49:38

The first thing that comes to mind is you know, it's it's hard to be mad at somebody for whom you're praying

49:45

So I would say the first thing you need to start with is prayer, right? It's the praying for the other person and then of course, you know hearkening back to James again

49:57

Pray for wisdom for yourself That's the one thing that God promises He'll give you without you know without finding fault right with it

50:04

And he upbraideth not if you want to use the King James, right? He's you pray for wisdom for yourself and pray for a heart for the other person and pray

50:12

You know God's richest blessings upon the other person. I think if you make that a consistent habit

50:17

It's gonna be really difficult for you to harbor a grudge against somebody for whom you're you know, you're actively praying

50:24

Yeah, I have prayed for people that just being transparent and honest, you know people

50:31

I prayed for I'm like praying because I think they're wrong and God needs to work on them.

50:36

And as I'm praying for him, I realize oh actually sorry Lord. It was me that had the problem And I you know and a change of attitude does go a long way

50:46

Yeah Oh open my eyes Lord to see my own faults Right because we're often times blinded because we're too close to her, you know, we're too close to our own problems to see them

50:55

Now pastor Dan you've been preaching through Ephesians I think Ephesians 4 might have a thing or two to say that you were preaching through well, there there are several and again,

51:07

I He's really spoke, you know way back in Lafayette, you know back in the 90s when we were presented with these four rules but it goes back to Ephesians 15 and Then also in 25 where we just have to be honest and loving

51:24

You know, don't lie, you know speak truth with your neighbor speak that great

51:29

Yeah, you always you never you can speak the truth and love so You know, we just have to be honest and loving to even as you mentioned those people that are irritating us

51:43

And you know, there's all different scenarios that we're all thinking of ways to do that But you know, we just got to be thinking how can

51:49

I be honest with this person and still loving to the person? So that would be one rule.

51:56

The second one would be to Don't grow bitter. Don't let that heart of bitterness going to keep current to speak

52:04

To speak up before it becomes a bigger deal in a lesser way. Don't let the

52:10

Sun go down on the raft so, you know whether that's a confrontation or Whether it's being able to go home and just say, you know

52:19

God I think is one you just mentioned You know, God's got something here. He wants me to learn And you know, we're surrounded with sinners.

52:27

We sinners all they said So, I guess I need to be more Christlike and gracious and extending the gospel to sinners

52:35

However, that looks but you got to be able to let that go and start out fresh every day

52:41

Just like the Lord says there and lamentations his mercies are renewed every morning

52:46

So Robin rightly said we're not going to go to work with bitterness or a chip on her shoulder

52:51

We're starting out clean again and then as we go a little further near the end of Ephesians before we seek solutions and You know, there's all kinds of scenarios and up things you could do even in a work situation of an irritating person

53:11

But again, we don't want to have to continue to repeat the same Scenario again and again and again there could be multiple options multiple different things that we could do to bring about a

53:24

Solution both in the near and far term And the last one would be so we want to act biblically

53:32

We want to speak gracious words with you mid with humility because we want to be like Christ in Ephesians 4 31 32 all these things being honest we do it because we're a family we keep current because we don't want to give

53:47

Satan an opportunity to divide and we seek solutions because we don't want to grieve the

53:53

Holy Spirit These are these are four really good foundational things that you could talk for hours about because even the keeping current

54:01

Also has to balance the love covering sin Yeah Fatima says this referring to Dan crafts remarks

54:12

Dan's remarks on prayer made me realize that cultivating peace with God results in peace in relationships

54:20

And I think that's a really a really good point Anthony anything else you want you want to add to that No, I I can't think of anything in particular

54:32

I mean, you know, yeah So, you know one of the things I think because I was counseling

54:39

Married couples before I got married. I think that actually helped me get coming into marriage and one of the things that My bride and I have done is that when

54:54

I Realized early on that the way we we come from very different backgrounds

55:02

Anyone who knows us and you look at our our just personalities are very different and our communication is very different And so we ended up before we got married discussing the ways that we communicate

55:17

Now my bride is one who if she is if she gets emotional about something, she doesn't want to talk at all

55:23

She wants to think it through. She doesn't want to discuss it until she's thought through it

55:29

Where I I'm an engineer, right? I want to fix a problem. I see a problem. It needs fixing and it needs fixing now

55:38

Type that's gonna get impatient if we don't deal with it She's the type that doesn't want to talk about it until she's ready

55:46

So before we even got married we had a game plan and We came up with with just some key words to let each other know.

55:57

So if we hear certain words So if if I could I sense that she's upset about something

56:04

I I'll ask her what's up, you know, what's wrong some, you know, you look bothered. However, I might word that She her key words are

56:13

I'm not ready to talk about it That is the that's the key for me.

56:18

She just communicated to me. She needs to process it We're not ready to discuss it give her time

56:26

That's that's that's the her key words to me to back off But see I get frustrated to a point where it's like, okay

56:33

I need an answer like I need to know what's bothering you and I need it. I see a problem It needs to be solved.

56:38

So my key words to her It to communicate was to say how much time do you need?

56:46

That that then she that way she would say, okay tomorrow after dinner or Give me an hour, whatever it might be.

56:53

But that that's that's the signal to her to say that I'm getting antsy I can't I I need to to deal with it and You know gives her a way of okay

57:03

I got to wrap up my thinking by this time so that we could sit down and talk about it And I really think that has been a key to one, you know, people talk about having you know, these

57:15

Yelling matches with husbands and wives and and my bride and I ever ever really had that we've disagreed but we never had this where we're just screaming at each other and yelling at each other and I think a lot of it is because we we went into the marriage with I Think Robin.

57:34

I think it was you who said practicing these things Or if not someone did but we went in practicing this communication we

57:43

Before we we were upset We came up with the game plan and then said, okay

57:48

What are some ways we can communicate with each other so that the other person knows? Hey, I just heard the key words that I know what that means

57:56

You know if I'm coming to her and saying how much time do you need? It's like the signal to say he's getting really impatient and I need to have the discussion for Folks they

58:09

I don't know there are other kind of techniques or or tools or things that you could think of that Would help people in communicating with others, especially if they have an open enough relationship

58:22

I mean a husband and wife should have an open enough relationship to be able to To discuss that I'll add this

58:30

As well as one of the things I do with married couples and if there's any young Adults listening key in on what

58:39

I'm about to say and if you have young adults get them over to the your podcast app or you're monitored to hear this because this would be really important, but one of the questions and I'll say this when we get to the marriage episode, but Whenever I counsel married couples, one of the questions

58:55

I always ask is how many people did you date before you got married? It might seem like a strange question, but what

59:03

I've discovered is the more somebody's dated They've dated someone they broke up the relationship.

59:10

They got hurt They go into the next relationship wanting to protect themselves a bit so they don't communicate as well they they want to protect so they're not as vulnerable and then they get hurt again and It happens again again

59:22

So the more someone's dated typically the less open the best vulnerable they want to be the less they actually communicate honesty with with one another and so that's something so if you're a young person my encouragement to you is

59:37

Don't date until you marry. I mean, I wish I did that my bride did that. I'm her only boyfriend

59:44

Maybe that's why she said yes, I don't know But what kind of tools or techniques can others have

59:55

That's that's just I'm blonde. So that's just now sinking in Oh Well, you've met my bride so you you know how how you know how she is and how

01:00:07

I am I Always say that my wife is great. She has no flaws except her taste in men

01:00:13

Yeah That's that's like a line from Metz like where he says his wife's good.

01:00:20

How he words. It's unlike I But my wife is he'll sometimes say what you said and there's another one where he's like, she's great at decision -making except for Her choice in husband.

01:00:30

There's not like that Yeah, I think you know really as far as tips

01:00:39

I'm just trying to think broadly not just in marriage again, part of that is just trying to be

01:00:46

Christian to everybody, you know your co -worker your People at church.

01:00:52

I mean, you know even just this past Sunday One of the one of the little boys at church was was all excited because he's got this a little idea of a

01:01:01

Comic book or whatever and and he was telling me about it. It was so cool. So because of something that somebody modeled to me one time and taught me

01:01:11

I sat down and I got down on his level and just tried to like listen to it and get get into his world and That's a way

01:01:20

I think of just wanting to try to be like Jesus, you know If we can stop and say, okay

01:01:27

Well, well is my co -worker here having a bad day or what just happened to my co -worker that they're responding this way

01:01:32

Or maybe I know my co -workers going through a divorce or just lost somebody I'll confess something even in my own neighborhood

01:01:41

I was feeling really bad for a while because you know one of the reasons you talked about I hadn't podcasted in a long time and Early on one of the things that happened was

01:01:50

I lost both my dad and my stepmother in the same day you remember that mm -hmm and I Didn't realize it but I was snapping at my neighbors as they were coming by and they were you know

01:02:03

There's like some HOA thing going on Nothing major, but they were just asking for ballots or whatever and I just kind of snapped that I'm like leave me alone and they were just you know

01:02:12

I finally to go back and repent and apologize and seek forgiveness because I realized I was I was sinning towards them

01:02:19

So again, just trying to be like Jesus in what we do is helpful Yeah, and I'll brag a bit on my pastor here because we you were saying with the

01:02:31

You know the the young one. I've seen him do that with kids in the church We're just getting down at their level and speaking just a soft voice he's really good at that not to embarrass you, but I'm watching

01:02:47

Well, it works for people then it also works for adults. In fact,

01:02:53

I've oftentimes Said something to the effect that you know that two three minutes before the service service starts

01:03:00

You know is really not a good time to talk to me Because you know, there's just so much going on in my head, you know

01:03:07

And if you really want to talk to me, we need to sit down. So just grab a chair grab a pew Let's sit down and talk

01:03:15

Because that also works well within the home situation as well. You know if I'm Fixing a widget or whatever and Robin comes in and starts talking if I continue to work on my widget

01:03:30

I've just it's just not a good Habit, so, you know in order to listen.

01:03:36

Well, you have to stop to listen So we're gonna have to shut the

01:03:41

TV off as difficult as that is because it's right in the middle of the game Or we're gonna have to put the phone down and we're just going to happen and that's really hard because of our phones

01:03:52

We're always with our phones, but you're gonna have to flip your phone over turn your phone off and you just got to listen

01:03:59

So that's a good thing. Another tip that I would use is And there's two ways they do this

01:04:05

We talked earlier about communication that's gone bad. I Would suggest that sometimes the parties begin to write down Things they appreciate about the person

01:04:20

They're probably not to the point yet where they can say it because they'd rather you know They've been frustrated to death over this person, but just start writing it down and then you know

01:04:30

You eventually can communicate it to that person verbally and you know

01:04:36

Say one nice thing a day or something But to begin with a tip to begin with is just start writing down the person that bugs you at work just start writing down one thing a day that you appreciate about that person and then

01:04:51

In other relationships, I also have them because Misunderstanding is like it's all around us even with within our home.

01:05:00

We have a compound here I've got my mother -in -law living with us. I got my son and his wife living with us at us

01:05:07

So we've got three units living under one house So sometimes it's really good to write it down make it short make it concise and That helps me when

01:05:20

I'm writing something down. I can't just use my dictation on my Word document pull out a whole page

01:05:25

You know, let's get a subject verb object. Just something Concise it helps me think through my endgame.

01:05:32

What am I trying to communicate and it is just very helpful that way Yeah, so some of the some comments that we have here and Aaron joined us

01:05:47

Michael the Canadian atheist first off. Hey, welcome. I haven't seen you in in the chat in a while You should come join the show.

01:05:54

Sometimes we can talk some more But he says hey my wife and I use the exact same thing that you use

01:06:00

Works well compromises the key. So this that you're referring to the way that I was sharing with what my wife and I do

01:06:08

Melissa said wait, you don't date. How did you meet your wife? Well, I met her at work

01:06:14

So that's where I met her so I had gotten to know her because I started discipling her and And so we didn't really date so much

01:06:24

I mean we dated but it wasn't like we went on we weren't doing recreational dating, which is what

01:06:30

I caught It was more of a job Isn't that what people do they do recreational dating they they're not dating for any other purpose than fun and There's not

01:06:46

Yeah, and so my bride and I had the goal of marriage that was the goal This one

01:06:52

Anthony is for you, and I think you're actually going to to agree with it But Jesse is saying quote trying to be like Jesus unquote is law

01:07:00

Rather we ought to remind ourselves of the gospel and what he has done in our stead and afterwards he said no offense

01:07:09

No, no none taken. I'm really glad that you you put it that way In a sense it is law

01:07:15

Right. I mean God says be perfect as I'm perfect now, obviously, we know we can't do that But we are to love the

01:07:23

Lord our God and we're to love others So there is a law the law of Christ. So in a sense

01:07:30

We're not under Old Testament law, of course, but we are under the law of Christ so yes, we are under law and I forget the second part of that, but Yeah, it's it's the gospel which

01:07:40

I know yeah you have you written two books about sharing the gospel You would focus on that but but he but you're right it is the gospel and and how do

01:07:53

I display that it's you know all it must come from From a love of what

01:07:59

God has done in my life And and out of that love for Jesus, I want to love others.

01:08:04

I want to be patient with others I want to repent when I need to repent because I'm miscommunicated and so on.

01:08:10

So yeah, that's It's an interesting point. You're you're a little bit wrong there But where you're going was right?

01:08:17

Yeah, we I mean a lot of the communication issues can you know for me? At least are often solved in the fact of remembering

01:08:23

What I rightly deserve and what I'm getting and go Yeah.

01:08:29

Mm -hmm. Just shut your mouth sometimes Fatima had said the way Andrew and Dan speak about their wives makes me cry

01:08:36

And Fatima has her husband has passed on she is had it had a rough you know rough rough time with with Someone who is not the kindest to her but you know

01:08:52

There's many lessons. You can teach others as well. So So Aaron is is here and so we'll just let

01:08:59

Aaron know why don't you just sum up everything that we said You guys did a great job really it was such a blessing to my heart

01:09:09

I've learned so much Now for so for for at least pastor

01:09:15

Dan and Robin Yes Aaron is in the dark and and one of the things is

01:09:21

Aaron likes to come in at a different location every time But it's always in the dark Where he goes?

01:09:27

This is I have my I have my phone shining a light on me just for Andrew So he was like,

01:09:33

I'm not in the dark. He thinks he's Batman. Yeah Electricity they try to save us electricity bill

01:09:44

So Aaron let me just open it up to you with issues of communication. What advice would you have for folks to improve communication?

01:09:54

That's a great question as I'm sure it's already been touched on as a biblical counselor Communication comes up as an issue in nearly every single counseling case

01:10:05

I get with maybe the exception of addiction Because anything that's relational is going to involve communication

01:10:12

So it comes up all the time. So ends up being something we talked about a lot but thankfully the Bible has a lot to say about it and I don't want to you know go into all of it right now.

01:10:22

I Would be repeating a lot of what people have said, but I will point you to a resource If you go to truth love parent comm and you search two words

01:10:33

Communication house, and I'm sure Andrew can put That into the the chat there so you guys can

01:10:41

That will take you to a podcast episode that I did that was specifically in regard to parenting and it was about setting up Teaching Christ honoring communication to our children and our families and setting up a context in which we can glorify

01:10:57

God in our communication I'll just simplify it. It is based out of Ephesians 4 15 as the the foundational verse

01:11:07

And the imagery of a house is just simply to help us all understand how communication works

01:11:15

If I am inside a house and You're outside of the house and the doors are shut and the windows are shut and it's pouring down rain outside The this is of us being able to communicate.

01:11:28

Well are very slim. You say of course that makes sense Because you can't hear each other

01:11:34

Yep, that's exactly right But here's the thing two people can be in the same room together with absolutely no distractions

01:11:42

Hearing each other just fine and still No communication is happening in the exact same way that a person outside of a house can't communicate with somebody inside of house

01:11:52

And so metaphor the imagery of a house is made up of three parts. There's the foundation.

01:11:58

There's the walls and there's the roof and According to visions for teen we are supposed to communicate truth in love

01:12:05

And so the foundation of that is truth if I am NOT speaking that which is true

01:12:11

And this is not just me not trying to lie to somebody We oftentimes lie to ourselves

01:12:16

We are we are mistaken About how things should be happening and how we should be responding.

01:12:23

So I'm not communicating truth. I'm outside of the house I can't have a Christ honoring Communication.

01:12:30

I can't really have any communication The walls are love speaking the truth in love first Corinthians 13 tells us an awful lot about what love looks like I wish it doesn't say preview.

01:12:41

That's not bad, though Thank you for throwing that up there if you just kind of zoom in on the left hand side if that's possible. That'd be really awesome And I identify there that the the forgiveness and the kindness and the patience are all part of that love and then ultimately as you can see there the roof of the communication house is

01:13:01

God's glory if Everyone involved in the communication is speaking truth in love for God's glory real genuine

01:13:09

Communication is happening. Now. We all know that rarely happens far too often

01:13:14

In fact, I'll just be transparent with you just the other day My wife and I were not communicating inside of the house

01:13:19

Both of us had stepped outside of the house and it didn't go well We had we had there there was apology and forgiveness that had to be sought

01:13:26

Because of the collab of the relational carnage that came about because we were communicating outs the house the right hand what you see on the right hand side of that page is it says the communication house rules and This is a document.

01:13:41

I actually give away to my counselees. I sell it a counseling conference. I called the counseling card It's actually designed for someone to use to to teach these truths and the stuff on the back is kind of for the counselor

01:13:53

But the communication house rules are a big part of of this

01:13:58

In our house, we establish the fact that all communication from all individuals at all times has to stay inside the house

01:14:06

Sometimes you have you know families they set up family tables and they set up rules for this is what we do when somebody

01:14:12

You know breaks one of our family codes of conduct and some people have done everything from in red bags

01:14:18

To having code words and whatever else To say hey, you've just now done that thing that we as a family promise we won't do and So this is part of that, you know if our communication isn't happening inside of the house as glorifies

01:14:33

God and there are some things that need that that happen and that's where Rules two three and four come in They deal with how what do we do when one or more people has doubts at the house?

01:14:45

But anyway again are probably our talk long enough but if you go and you search up the communication house and you find that episode even though it's talking about parents or children all

01:14:53

The content is still there. This is something that I speak on in certain contexts So that can be hopefully just a really good visual especially communicating it to children, but really for anybody to visualize

01:15:06

God's expectation for our communication and then ways of Glorifying the

01:15:11

Lord in those times when one or more people says I'm not going to communicate God the way God wants me to Setting up some some rules that we as a family can agree on And then you know be used to sharpen each other in those situations

01:15:27

Thank you. And and Fatima says happy to see Aaron I think he's a very good biblical counselor from what

01:15:34

I've seen and heard on this program She says the quicker we repent of sins is the great skill and a lot of Life and relationship issues and So some resources on communication that the the different that the counselors here

01:15:55

Anthony Aaron Dan and Robin have put together for you guys if you want to go into more depth of learning

01:16:03

To improve communication you already heard from Aaron just go to truth.

01:16:08

Love parent Dot -com and if you go there you could search for communication see the communication house.

01:16:15

He spoke to I'll put that in the show notes I think Robin mentioned The book

01:16:21

The Peacemaker by Ken Snape sand Sandy The Peacemaker is a very very good book.

01:16:30

I recommend that another one is the war of words By Paul is an excellent

01:16:39

That's actually one that I used to buy by the case when I'd counsel regularly and hand out

01:16:47

Another one that I'm not familiar with is relationships a mess worth making by Tim Lane and Paul trip

01:16:57

And I don't know which of you put it in but said you said especially chapter 7 and 12 And then another one that This is a good one is

01:17:08

Alex Strauch's book if you bite and devour one another that's a smaller book

01:17:15

But Very very good and for Anthony's sake Alex is another

01:17:21

Jersey boy. So he is brother. Yeah Yeah, so let's let's get into well

01:17:31

Can I just throw in one more resource no, go ahead you're gonna make me angry

01:17:42

Now just another resource and I mentioned this only because it's just it's a it's a recent brand new thing by God's grace

01:17:48

I just was able to publish my first book. It's a it's a it's more like a booklet. It's less than the book it's called quit and then the subtitle is how to stop family strife for good and Though though,

01:18:02

I it's not necessarily a book about communication. That's obviously a huge part of The process of you know, taking care of strife.

01:18:12

So if that can be a blessing right now It's it's not back from the printers yet, but you can get a digital version of that with great ease on the evermind app

01:18:22

But that's another book that Lord willing could be added to some of your libraries and be a blessing Yes, the the app they refer to is an app that's on your phone smartphone called evermind part of evermind ministries which

01:18:35

Aaron is the founder so So with that Let me but before we start talking about anger

01:18:47

Because I think that you know, we're gonna talk about the next issue of anger you know, I know Aaron was trying to get me angry, but see the thing is is it's the reason it won't work is

01:18:58

Because you know one thing that I find really helps When when someone's gonna get try to get me angry like Aaron is if I have a good pillow

01:19:06

See, so if you go out to my pillow get yourself a nice comfy pillow

01:19:12

See Aaron when we are at the conference in Arizona, Dan I don't know if you noticed but Aaron came with a my pillow.

01:19:19

He had a my pillow there I heard I only saw it while I was preaching.

01:19:24

I don't know. I didn't see it when you were preaching. I don't know why but you know the

01:19:32

If you want to get yourself a good night's sleep Dan Dan may be able to attest this. I know

01:19:37

Aaron can that I was in Arizona with my my pillow I travel with it.

01:19:43

I don't sleep without it I don't sleep. Well without it at least But I also got their three -inch mattress topper, which was great.

01:19:52

I know they're doing a sale right now I think that that right now you can get Their my pillow the standard at their lowest price ever things.

01:20:00

It's like $19. So If you ever wanted a chance to try one of their pillows now might be the times just go to my pillow comm use the promo

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Code SFE that stands for striving for eternity gets you all the discounts, but you can get yourself some pillows

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01:20:26

Made well, most of it. I should say made here in America. Not all of it, but great products

01:20:31

And so you can do that. Another one of our sponsors is Squirrelly Joe's coffee, which

01:20:38

Aaron loves if you would drink coffee Well, at least as Aaron likes when we go to conferences with squirrelly

01:20:44

Joe's coffee because his wife gets it so she's happy That he brings it home.

01:20:51

And so the the squirrelly Joe's coffee You can go to a striving fraternity org slash coffee striving for eternity org slash coffee and from there you'd be able to Enjoy a nice cup of coffee from a

01:21:05

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01:21:12

Yes, the best pillow I agree Jesse so Remember if you go to striving fraternity org slash coffee

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01:21:28

So they have five pound bags if you want for your church, they have lots of different flavors

01:21:33

I am drinking a cup of compassion today I'm just saying that's the name of the coffee that I'm drinking.

01:21:42

I can't say that it's it's it's rubbed off on me yet I think maybe I need another cup of compassion, but Hey, I'll put a plug in for squirrelly

01:21:51

Joe's too because you sent me home with a couple bags and I'm about probably two -thirds of the way through my bag of light roast and I Think it's you know, it's not would not be a stretch to say that I'm nuts over squirrelly

01:22:03

Joe's Well, see you saying the light roast but you have to know which what the name of it is

01:22:09

It it's the orange one, man. I just reach out into the cabinet and I Integrity I think actually the orange one might be kindness.

01:22:18

Okay, so you're The Christian mystics can have a lot of fun with this one

01:22:28

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01:22:53

So let's get into one of the biggest issues in communication is anger Dan you already quoted a verse out of Psalms.

01:23:02

You know, don't let the Sun go down on your wrath I know a lot of people use that to refer to marriage

01:23:08

I get it. It's actually in in Psalms. It's referring to false to idolatry but When we look at this we look at anger, let me let me ask the question pastor

01:23:21

Dan of you first when we talk about anger, what is anger because I think there's a lot of people that will talk about a righteous anger and People will try to argue when they're angry that they're doing a righteous anger

01:23:36

So What is what is anger? And what what do you think would be the difference between a righteous anger and a sinful anger?

01:23:45

anger is very quick Evaluation and a conclusion of a perceived injustice

01:23:57

And it happens so scary fast We see something we make a conclusion of a perceived injustice and therefore we are angry

01:24:08

As We look at righteous anger As we look at the account there of Jesus it would be

01:24:18

Where other people are being taken advantage of or abused or whatever modifier you want to put in?

01:24:26

Or that God is getting the proverbial black eye so anytime the testimony of God is being

01:24:36

Tarnished or anytime keep people are being taken advantage of abused in that Example would be a righteous anger

01:24:45

Most of the time most people are not angry it For the right things and even if we are righteous for the right things

01:24:57

We don't express it in the right way There's many instances where people have had a good anger the abortion of the children, but then they've expressed that in very ungodly ways

01:25:13

So that would very quickly would just be my answer Robin anything you want to add to that?

01:25:22

I Would add the only thing I would add is that anger is a lack of mercy

01:25:28

Hmm it's a lack of mercy My favorite there's so many good books on anger, but if you've made me pick one, it would be

01:25:35

Powelson's good and angry Absolutely, that's my favorite You mean one of the things you think you're saying

01:25:43

Pastor Dan how scary fast it could be. I always remember and I've always used this as the illustration when it comes to anger.

01:25:50

I Can remember, you know, my stepmother was one that she would be very, you know, I sent she would vent she'd get angry

01:25:57

But one of the things I always thought interesting. I remember this as a child she could be yelling at me or any of us and just you know lashing out the phone rings and it's like Hello and I realized right then anger is completely controllable

01:26:16

Yes, I mean as fast as she would be lashing out of one of us kids

01:26:23

When the phone rang she would answer it and that it just totally changes immediately so I like a lot of people say and I'm going to ask this one of Anthony a lot of people say that you you know, it's just it's my frustration.

01:26:40

I can't control it I Think I gave the example where it can be controlled

01:26:45

But do you believe that anger is something we can we can control or is it something?

01:26:51

We just have to once it takes over. We have to let it go Yes, and no,

01:26:56

I mean yet. Yes Ultimately. Yes that that it is something we can control and I say that yes and no in the sense that Even for believers

01:27:09

We have to rely on the Holy Spirit we have to rely on the Lord So it is something we can't we don't have the strength to always master it.

01:27:18

So We have to go to the Lord so I mean there are times when you might be

01:27:23

Ready to explode in anger over something that perceived injustice

01:27:31

But you're the What you have to do in that moment, you have to catch yourself And be disciplined unto godliness and literally cry out to the

01:27:40

Lord say Lord If you don't intervene here I'm going to explode and I know it and I know

01:27:48

I'm gonna sin and I want to sin but I love you more and I I desperately am begging you to to intervene in this situation before I Sin against you and sin against whoever that person is.

01:28:01

I Actually had to do that one time not rather than the last year

01:28:06

I I was I forget if it was a work situation or what I worked from home and I just had to like go and I I just On my knees and beg

01:28:16

God like I'm gonna I cannot master this moment. I need your help and he did so Yes, and no is the answer that How would you see a difference between they say anger and frustration?

01:28:32

Pastor Dan might have some more light on this, but I think a frustration they're both a perceived injustice, right?

01:28:38

It's in I Think one is maybe more simmering and one is more explosive.

01:28:43

So that's I would be interested in his nuance on that but also to But want to bring into the conversation the issue of the sovereignty of God Right when something doesn't go up quote -unquote our way

01:28:57

We have to realize that God is sovereign over everything So if we didn't get our way, it's because God sovereignly did not allow that to happen now

01:29:06

Maybe he did that for our sanctification So that we would respond in that trial in that test righteously

01:29:17

There's all kinds of reasons for you know Maybe God is disciplining that other person, but you happen to be being used by God in that moment

01:29:24

So you're thinking that there's a perceived injustice here, but God's actually working in that person's life as well

01:29:29

There's all kinds of things God can do, right? Yeah, I like how you say perceived injustice

01:29:36

Yeah, yeah Pastor Dan Restoration is

01:29:42

I'm sorry to interrupt. I was just gonna toss it to you. So yes frustration. I think is a

01:29:48

Policin would describe it and others. It's just a accumulation of it

01:29:56

Anger could be a one -time event and frustration is just accumulation of a series of whatever over a period of time

01:30:06

Unmet expectations Yeah, and and also too I think Uh, dr.

01:30:12

Stewart scott at least he's the one who taught this to me. Maybe he got it from somewhere but also that idea of we as biblical counselors, we always want to Help people use biblical words and anger is a biblical word frustration.

01:30:27

I As far as I know, it doesn't appear in scripture so We can say well i'm just frustrated no biblically you're angry

01:30:35

So you need to use the biblical word anger So that's another aspect. That's a really interesting point

01:30:42

I was gonna say I love nuance. I really do but More often than not

01:30:48

I find that I I do this myself. My kids do this. My counselees do this we try to find ways of Of uh kind of whitewashing our sin.

01:30:56

I'm not angry. I'm not frustrated. I'm just I was annoyed I was a little aggravated I was you know, and we have all of these fun derivations but the reality is

01:31:07

We were angry, uh, or we were wrathful. We were slanderous. We were clamoring. We were malicious that those those that's really what's going on Yeah, and so there there looks like uh in different translations

01:31:21

Uh, maybe two dozen uh Instances of the word frustrated in being translated in the bible frustrate frustrates frustrated

01:31:34

Um frustrated plans and other translations was that what was the other world?

01:31:39

so so well i'm looking at the I just the with my software just pulls up the new american standard 95 lsb homing christian standard esv in the net bible and so The net bible has it translated.

01:31:57

Uh As frustrated or diversion, uh version of that more than the others

01:32:06

I wonder if That I wonder if it's the same Same hebrew word or whatever

01:32:12

Thanks for pointing that out. I'm, sorry. I misspoke. No, no, no, no I would you got me curious as why and but you're right it would take digging into each of these passages

01:32:21

To look at how they're using it to make sure they're using it the same way Before we could you know

01:32:27

Say that yeah It says that But the but the biblical, uh

01:32:36

Yeah principle is going to be the same You know as was uh, aaron mentioned about the nuancing, you know

01:32:43

Whether it's frustration or whether it is, you know bitterness or whether it's annoyed

01:32:49

It all follows under that umbrella of you know, you need to put it off. We need to think differently and Let's do differently

01:32:57

Yeah, yeah, yeah, oh and and I just like clarification Just like clarification psalm 39 2 in the net bible says refers to my frustration grew

01:33:11

I was stone silent. I held back the urge to speak my frustration grew in the next verse. It says my anxiety intensified

01:33:18

In the lsb it says I was mute in silence. I kept silent from speaking good

01:33:23

And my anguish grew worse And it goes on to say my heart was hot within me so I think andrew's point is really very important that you know, we

01:33:32

Was was that word frustrated? What does it mean? It was the hebrew word anguish referring to it refers to pain

01:33:39

Was traded the best translation? Well, it wasn't in the lsb. So i'm kidding. But yeah

01:33:45

Yeah, that's why I said, you know, I think frustration it has more to do with unmet expectations right because I can be

01:33:51

Completely frustrated by something that's happening to me at work, uh frustrated by a particular nasty bug that i'm debugging

01:33:58

I'm a software engineer by trade And uh, but you know, i'm not i'm not angry at it.

01:34:03

I'm just really frustrated I can't figure this out and things just aren't working and it's just like you know

01:34:09

But it's not rising to the level of anger, you know, there are gifts for that the guy, you know The famous gift of the guy, you know smacking his lap is his monitor and then eventually standing up throwing it down You know that that's anger or rage.

01:34:21

Maybe the bible would say I think it's also helpful to point out that You know, there's there's nothing inherently wrong with with anger itself

01:34:29

You know scripture commands us, you know be angry yet. Do not sin ephesians 4 26 so Given that command alone.

01:34:36

Apparently it is quite possible to be angry and not sin in the process I mean jesus shows us two examples of that and the cleansing of the temple at the beginning and the end of his ministry

01:34:45

Um, so, you know, there's there's nothing inherently wrong with anger and you know, yes, it is controllable

01:34:52

Uh, it's just a matter of I think it's kind of boils down to you know, I think this was said earlier You know, what's the heart content of that anger?

01:34:58

You know, why are you angry? Are you angry because you feel that you've been treated unjustly? Well, you know put your big boy pants on right?

01:35:06

But are you angry because somebody else is being treated unjustly? And then of course you have to express that anger in the right way

01:35:13

So, you know being angry about abortion is is completely there's nothing wrong with that As a matter of fact,

01:35:19

I would encourage that But I would not encourage somebody to strap on explosives and go, you know self -detonate in an abortion clinic and and andrew, uh,

01:35:30

I want to two things real quick, uh You know when we talk about it

01:35:36

As we're talking to people and we hear them say well i'm frustrated about this situation Uh again, are they are they saying that even they're frustrated at god?

01:35:44

Well again, that's that's being angry at god You're really being angry that that god didn't bend his will to your will

01:35:51

That's one thing the second thing too. Uh That's important is and this is something you brought up earlier about it's kind of along the lines of controlling your anger

01:36:02

When people say things like well Andrew said that and he made me angry

01:36:07

Uh, or that guy did that and and he made me No you let yourself get angry, uh, and that's that's a really important thing too because it ironically it it can be it can be frustrating because I can

01:36:24

I have no one to blame but myself in that moment It's really so it is kind of it's almost comical because now i'm angry

01:36:30

But i'm angry because I let myself get angry and it's like well you dummy. Why did you let yourself get angry? So but that's an important thing too that we let ourselves get angry

01:36:41

People don't super super important point. Yes. I was actually just having that conversation with one of my children tonight

01:36:47

I only have two so it's a 50 50 chance whichever one you think it was but Um, yeah, we were talking about that exact same thing since three three of us here were with your son

01:36:58

And know where he is right now Hey technology allows us to talk over distances man.

01:37:03

We're doing it tonight Um, but I was going to go back to something that robin said about anger being a lack of mercy

01:37:09

Uh, I have two podcasts on the uh on the community And one of them is called the celebration of god and I did a series called the merciful life and I would encourage you if you um

01:37:22

If you struggle with anger, uh to check out that series we step through ephesians 4 31 and 32

01:37:28

We go through piece by piece to understand the biblical definition of anger and biblical answer to anger um

01:37:37

It's called again the merciful life series. It's on the celebration of god podcast There's also a version of that for parents

01:37:43

If you have angry children if you go to truthloveparent .com and you search parenting angry children or you go to our series page you can find that same content packaged for dealing with Children who struggle with anger but one of the things

01:37:58

I think is really important that dan mentioned and Both dan's actually mentioned it Is the fact that anger can be righteous and um, it was it was mentioned that you know

01:38:08

Divine anger is rooted in truth divine anger is motivated by god's glory. It's not about me But one of the things

01:38:14

I just wanted to share because it took me so long To understand it. I don't i'm understanding it perfectly

01:38:21

But i'm still going i'm going that direction as dan mentioned the passage from psalm 4 4 and then ephesians 4 4

01:38:26

They both have this idea about nighttime And the idea of sitting on our beds and contemplating and I always wondered okay

01:38:34

Both verses in the bible that talk about how I can be angry and not sin also talk about the evening

01:38:41

And long story short and I go into more detail in the merciful life series about this

01:38:47

Um, but what I what I believe is being communicated in part there in the scriptures is that divine anger actually has a time limit

01:38:54

And just really quickly there are just four aspects to this Um, if i'm angry if i'm sinfully angry then

01:39:04

Oftentimes i'm going to carry that anger with me even when the object of my anger is nowhere around me if uh

01:39:11

If in sanctified anger anger doesn't benefit anything when the object of the anger, uh, isn't even there

01:39:19

Uh, it it'll stop. I can't do anything about it here And now god has another plan for me that could be parenting my kids that could be eating dinner

01:39:27

That could be any number of things but being angry Is not profiting me because there's literally nothing

01:39:32

I can do about it Um in a similar way sanctified anger ceases when the object of your anger submits to truth

01:39:39

Oftentimes, you know someone comes and they apologize to us But we still are still angry about what they did to us a difference between sinful anger and sanctified anger um

01:39:51

Sinful in a similar way again sanctified anger ceases when god judges the person So you see that there's this the sinful anger likes to hold on Likes to and I don't

01:40:01

I don't know about you, but sometimes when i'm in a really bad mood When people try to cheer me up, I hate it. I want to be in a bad mood

01:40:07

I want to be angry. I want to be frustrated And that's what that is. That is sinful anger whereas sanctified anger

01:40:14

Recognizes the fact that this is not an appropriate thing and this is this is something that I can stop I can choose to stop and then the last

01:40:21

Of the four points is that our sanctified anger will cease when the evening comes even if and andrew mentioned earlier that sometimes that verse is used in relationship to marriages because Um, you know, we we go to bed we go to bed together in the same bed

01:40:37

Right, and we're angry at each other evening has come. Don't let the sun go down upon your wrath So our sanctified anger is going to cease even when the evening comes

01:40:45

When the evening comes even if the person is still in our presence Again, we can choose to do that as anthony pointed out not in our own power

01:40:54

But by god's grace because I recognize the fact listen right now I have a responsibility and that responsibility is to glorify god in my sleeping and my anger is not going to help me sleep

01:41:03

Nobody slept well because they were angry And it's that ability to be able to say there's a time to be angry and a time not to be angry and that wisdom and that discernment through the

01:41:13

Truth of god's word and the power of the holy spirit is a really massive part about sanctified anger that people miss

01:41:20

They'll say they'll easily justify well, you know This person is killing babies

01:41:27

Yeah, legitimately. That's that's a sinful thing that we should be angry about that and and I just want to glorify god

01:41:33

Okay I respect that but what you were saying to those people Was also going against god's revealed will about how we're to communicate to people

01:41:42

It's like dan said strapping a bomb to yourself goes against god's revealed will And so there are there are limits that god places on this that are really desperately important for us to follow yeah,

01:41:54

I mean and Um, I should say if folks want to if you want to share this after you find this helpful

01:42:01

Uh, maybe share this with others Maybe it will be something good for someone, you know to to help them the the you know

01:42:12

Anthony mentioned a number of times this idea of this, you know, really the what gets us angry, right?

01:42:18

It's it's we have expectations that are not being met We have expectations on other people we have expectations

01:42:26

How someone should treat us or or how they should behave and they're not doing what what we want

01:42:33

Uh, and I find that quite often um so I guess the the question would be and I don't know who'd want to pick this one up, but If we have that understanding that The the thing that gets us angry is that we have a perceived expectation that's not being met

01:42:57

What are ways that we could because especially if we have a constant problem with anger It means that we constantly have to readjust that what can we do?

01:43:06

How do we adjust? So that we can learn to not be angry because because like pastor dan said it happens in a split second, you know, it's

01:43:18

Anger is one of those things that you you know, you don't plan for you Don't go like oh i'm gonna get angry today. Well, actually

01:43:23

I can't say that I used I was counseling a guy with an addiction and he used to purposely He he told me he would come home.

01:43:31

He'd drive home Just so he could pick a fight with his wife Said he could yell at her and feel better about going to the bar and getting drunk

01:43:39

And and so he knew it was destroying his marriage, but he was comfortable he's more comfortable with what he knew than than change and so but other than that,

01:43:50

I mean What are some things people could do? To maybe reset their expectations

01:43:59

Anthony Yeah, one of the things that i'm I think we may have talked about this already

01:44:04

But we'll we'll be talking about it pretty much every week uh Is the the biblical pattern of put off put on and I know pastor dan and aaron

01:44:14

They could talk a lot about this as could you guys i'm sure uh But you know, we see that in ephesians four, right?

01:44:22

So we don't just tell people To forsake their sin in a void and just just just don't be angry.

01:44:30

Um It's we you put off the sin or put off the the temptation or whatever and put on something in instead and so For example, like in the case of anger

01:44:43

We don't just say don't be angry. You would you put on love, uh, uh tenderness whatever the the thing is

01:44:50

In that moment patience if it's you're getting angry because of something your kids are doing or whatever

01:44:56

So I just want to throw that principle out there That whole biblical put off put on Well, I was going to ask that of pastor dan because he just got done preaching it not too long ago

01:45:07

Uh as he was preaching. Sorry pastor dan. I'm sorry He's he's now, you know, we're getting into ephesians five as of what last week.

01:45:15

So So, uh So yeah, I mean that whole principle putting off putting on Well, I think you know with the expectations

01:45:26

And I know this is not going to be a pleasant Homeworker i'm sorry homework.

01:45:32

I'm too old. It's now personal growth projects I never heard that before.

01:45:39

No, no, it's it's a thing uh But the idea would be that you know, what

01:45:47

You know, there are I think there are expectations that we can biblically support But I think a lot of the expectations we have cannot be found in scripture so You know to begin with this whole idea of put off put on Is this a false or or a expectation that is culturally imposed?

01:46:09

Rather than scripturally supported So, you know if we decide that this is a unbiblical expectation, okay

01:46:18

So now we have to stop that and then the next process would be the renewing of the mind.

01:46:23

Okay Well, what does the bible say? What would be the substitute? You know repentance conviction all of that would go into play there

01:46:32

Of renewing the mind because renewing means that something was wrong So confess forsake, you know repent and then uh

01:46:42

Put on Okay. So what should be the expectations? That maybe paul suggested

01:46:50

Uh, but then in a marriage relationship, you know, you have to go beyond food and clothing there with to be content because we made some vows to one another and you know work through that but basically it would be

01:47:06

Evaluate If it is wrong biblically Confess it forsake it change our thinking ask god to be working in our hearts you know, uh spirit controlled collations five, you know talks about the

01:47:21

Lust of the flesh and the lust of the spirit and their desires and they're contrary to one another and then just Come up with a spiritual growth plan to change those expectations

01:47:36

Yeah, and let me ask uh Uh dan craft and i'm going to try to have us end on time because I know

01:47:43

I know robin gets up early um, i'm surprised she's still here, but i'm glad she is so and um

01:47:54

You know you you talked about uh in the private chat here about a lack of You know a consistent problem with anger being a lack of self -control

01:48:02

You know, maybe expound that a bit actually I would say it's not self -control It's control of self.

01:48:08

It's lack of spirit control so as I think about the relationships i've had with various people being you show me a somebody who uh, somebody who

01:48:17

I Who calls himself by the name of christ? And that if that person consistently is dealing with chronic anger rage, uh, just bitterness

01:48:27

And i'll show you a person who's not spending time in the word Isn't being discipled and or isn't part of a good solid bible believing church

01:48:35

Uh, i've got some people in my family uh Not in the immediate family mind you but in the extended family

01:48:41

That I can think of right off the top of my head and that fits them to a t you know um

01:48:46

Constantly complaining about the political situation and this and that and the other thing else and it's like you you When you take your eyes off of christ

01:48:53

Like peter did in in the in the in the on the sea of galilee, right? What are you gonna what's going to happen to you?

01:48:59

You're going to sink you're going to be overwhelmed by the cares and the concerns of the world around you You're not focusing on christ when we when we get our get our eye our priority straight and focus our eyes on on christ jesus

01:49:11

And stay plugged in and be spirit filled and spirit controlled Then the anger and the rage and the malice and the and the bitterness and everything else is going to naturally fall away

01:49:21

It might take some work But my goodness, I mean Just get plugged into the word, right

01:49:28

Yes And let me just add on that because again being plugged in the word, you know

01:49:37

Let's take the word expectations out and just say it this way, you know, which is worse Not to be loved or not to love

01:49:46

So, you know we can bridge that then to our expectations and again, you know, the gospel is being plugged in You know christ didn't come to be served

01:49:55

You know, he didn't come to have his expectations realized but he came to serve and to give his life a ransom amen

01:50:03

And so let me give another side Go ahead I was gonna say there's another side to the expectations a piece of it

01:50:14

So Anger is just like fear and depression Anger is oftentimes our outworking in our suffering

01:50:25

And suffering is always a result of loss We we add something it's gone.

01:50:30

It could be a job. It could be a friend It could be money. It could be any number of things health I lose something and I experience different some people experience different things a lot of people.

01:50:39

It's anger But there are at least three different types of losses The loss

01:50:45

That makes the most sense and that leads to oftentimes It can lead to a correct type of anger is a practical loss

01:50:53

It's an actual loss like my grandmother died last year or two years ago. That was an actual loss

01:51:00

That that there's that's a legitimate suffering and there can be appropriate responses to that When it comes to our expectations, like we're saying just kind of focus in on a little bit more

01:51:09

Is the fact that oftentimes we're not angry about practical loss we're angry about potential loss

01:51:18

We haven't lost it yet But we might that have a lot in political settings we might lose

01:51:27

Our control of this situation or we might it's this idea of what we might lose and we get very angry

01:51:34

What's even worse than that though is perceived loss It's not potential It's not practical

01:51:41

We're living like it's practical. We're living like it's a loss But it never actually happened and we go from a wrong expectation of what

01:51:49

I deserve To we're actually just living in a delusion Where we're convinced

01:51:55

That this thing that we're supposed to have we don't have it anymore and that our anger is appropriate So I just would encourage all of us whether we're for ourselves or working with other people

01:52:05

Try trying to identify the expectation trying to identify the loss And going from there

01:52:13

Is really important identify. What does the bible say about this? The bible has something to teach us about loss

01:52:18

And our response to it um But if we're able to identify that we haven't even lost it and we're angry

01:52:26

That actually can go a long way to kind of opening our eyes to seeing That our response is inappropriate

01:52:35

So, let me let me give some resources that our counselors here have provided for us

01:52:41

Uh already mentioned was good and angry by david paulson. Uh, robin mentioned that one another one that I remember, uh having finding very helpful was the the heart of anger

01:52:56

Subtitled practical help for the prevention and cure of anger in children

01:53:04

And that's by lou priello Uh one i'm not familiar with Uprooting anger by robert jones.

01:53:13

I'm not familiar with that one Uh, another one is help

01:53:19

My anger is out of control by uh, jim Neuhausen And i'll i'll i'll try to put the uh, all these in the show notes for the podcast

01:53:30

For those who by the way, I should say for those who listen on podcast only you really should be here watching live because There's some counseling going on in the chat and like it's always fun to see what's going on in the chat

01:53:42

Aaron was You know doing some counseling there a bit and uh, sometimes the chat goes totally off from what we're talking about.

01:53:49

Anyway, it's sometimes fun Especially when an atheist comes in or someone claims to be an atheist

01:53:55

The last recommended reading is a free one so, you know that I like that it's a jewish thing overcoming anger in the heart uh by paul dean

01:54:06

It says it's free. So i'm gonna go have to get that one and that's my pastor that so or one of our elders

01:54:12

There you go Uh, so there's a those are some resources on the issue of anger um next week

01:54:22

We'll plan to tackle the issues of marriage and parenting minor issues, there's never

01:54:29

Easy easy stuff easy stuff. Yeah, nothing ever happens to needing discussion there just maybe we could just move on after that and just be done quickly and Move to anxiety and depression because it'll be just so quick.

01:54:42

It'll be a natural follow -up Well that one

01:54:49

Marriage and parenting will be a natural follow -up to the communication and anger for sure Like we need to get the the groundwork laid for that but uh, yeah,

01:55:00

I do I do want to thank each of you for coming in I I did recognize that I guess we have some rules for this show

01:55:07

All men have to have their first name start with an a or they could be named dan Just kind of noticed it.

01:55:14

Uh, everyone must wear glasses And yeah, and only the men, uh, well,

01:55:20

I can't sorry pastor, but you know, most of us have some kind of facial hair here I'm not gonna apologize to you andrew.

01:55:28

I'll apologize to the pastor I have a beard. I just keep it very very short

01:55:36

Okay, elf beard, huh? Yeah, I have to I just under the surface. I shave it every every you know day to keep it that short and uh

01:55:44

I was gonna say that you know That all the guys have to be able to have the light shine off their their head, but aaron ruined that so, uh

01:55:54

So I I will say that so this whole month in september We're going to be dealing with counseling issues again.

01:56:00

If you find this helpful share it with a friend let others know Uh, you may find someone that's been struggling with things and you didn't even know it

01:56:07

And and then you sharing it might might be helpful for them. So this month we're going to do that I I have lined up for next month.

01:56:15

We're going to getting into a thing. We're doing themes for a month But next month we're going to deal with different apologetic styles.

01:56:21

So we're going to deal with presuppositional apologetics evidential apologetics Classical apologetics and then accumulative apologetics

01:56:30

So, uh, we're going to have folks discuss each of those um, i'm sure that dan is going to try to sneak in at least to Provide a presupp view on each week, you know

01:56:41

I kind of want to sneak into all of them because I got things to say about all those approaches. I know That's what

01:56:46

I said If you're inviting guests on who are not not part of my camp, then maybe I shouldn't show up Oh, i'm, it might be good to show up Hey, this is this is what

01:56:59

I have to do to get you to show up I don't you know, I mean just because you get a cook for your family well, you know, we're just gonna have to tempt you not to anger but to Yeah So, uh,

01:57:11

I do hope this has been helpful for for many of you. I hope that you learned something um

01:57:16

Let me just quickly look at some of the comments to see if there's any yeah Here's here's one that we could tackle maybe quickly fatima asked.

01:57:24

How do you encourage forgiveness in biblical counseling? Pastor dan, let me ask that of of you or actually no i'm gonna ask this one

01:57:32

Well, maybe you and robin because this is to to a lady as well. How do you do that, baby?

01:57:38

Forgiveness is a decision to uh When you when you say you forgive someone you decide to Let it go

01:57:49

Let it go in your mind. You don't think about it Let it go by not talking about it to others

01:57:55

And not bringing it up to them unless you bring it up to resolve it It is a choice

01:58:02

Yep, and then we basically go to matthew 7 And then we further explain that with matthew 18 beginning with peter's question

01:58:11

And we try to get them to realize that our sin against god is infinitely greater

01:58:17

Than a fellow sin against a fellow sin. Amen, and if we can and it's it's hard and it takes time for them to really understand that because We think that our sin i'm sorry someone's sin against us is infinitely greater

01:58:34

Against our sin against the holy god, but that's basically what we do. We go to matthew 7 You know log and spec.

01:58:41

How can that be? Well, jesus answers that through peter and matthew 18 and then as robin said it's basically that threefold promise

01:58:49

And I love genesis chapter 50 when joseph forgave his brothers and he said

01:58:54

Am I in the place of god God is still going to judge them

01:59:01

Forgiveness costs you to let it go. Yes, the cost of not forgiving is much greater.

01:59:07

Yeah And i'm going to give this one, uh pastor dan to you since you're both a pastor and a counselor, but melissa says

01:59:15

Do you say try to go to your pastor elders and deacons first before biblical counseling?

01:59:21

Yeah Well, I can just speak to at our church. We're not necessarily a church that does counseling.

01:59:28

We're a counseling church so Yeah, but if someone's going to go outside the church to a counselor

01:59:34

So if the choice is do I go to my pastors first before I go outside the church to a biblical counselor?

01:59:41

Yeah, this is again. I'm the old school biblical counselors where it was a ministry of the local church

01:59:47

So i'd say go to your local church, he's your shepherd and besides i'd say it this way your pain is salary

01:59:54

So go to him first As a guy who has

02:00:00

As a guy who has a para church counseling ministry this guy right here. I always tell people who come to me for counseling

02:00:08

I always say you need to talk to your pastor first I mean when you've reached the bottom of the barrel and there's literally no

02:00:14

In your church that you can deal with and you've scraped through the bottom of the barrel into the dirt and you find me there And i'm all that's left.

02:00:20

We'll meet So I agree with pastor dan completely to be happening in that context, uh, if it's going to be

02:00:28

Oftentimes glorifying god Yeah, because I mean if you think about it your pastors their job

02:00:36

Their calling is to shepherd you so if there's issues in your life A if they're if they're qualified to be a pastor, then they're qualified to counsel you and with scripture and so Who better to counsel you than someone whose?

02:00:54

Role it is in your life to shepherd you So I will say though in all fairness, there are two huge issues that people encounter just really quickly number one a lot of pastors

02:01:04

Actually, I mean, we're all we're all sinners. We're all human um a lot of pastors are not equipped to counsel, um

02:01:11

Because they have a lot of their own issues that they need to be working through first and that oftentimes you talked about anger

02:01:17

Anger oftentimes is a huge issue, uh for pastors, but number two a lot of pastors have believed the lie

02:01:25

From the secular world that you know, you guys deal with faith. We deal with science

02:01:30

We deal with mental health you guys deal with spiritual health and a lot of pastors are saying I don't know how to do this

02:01:36

I can't do this and I think any counseling ministry worth its salt and I can say that for my counseling ministry for acbc for ccef these counseling ministries are trying to Teach and equip pastors, uh to recognize that it is their responsibility.

02:01:51

They can do it and they have to do it Yeah and and I mean I would

02:01:56

I always give a caution with this when it comes to some of the Especially if someone's been doing secular counseling for a while, you know when once You know, they go secular or start secular and they put them on meds

02:02:10

You know, you can't just say oh quit the meds all right the I I had a

02:02:16

I had a pastor that did that he was just like no like you have to just cut out meds immediately and and You know, that's you got those medications you got to do carefully.

02:02:26

Yeah, and and i'll just jump in and and say real quick that Part of biblical counseling is you you know, you want people to go get a physical you want them to talk to their physician

02:02:37

We're not doctors. We're not medical professionals. Some people are medical professionals and they're biblical counselors

02:02:42

But you're exactly right. Like I would never counsel anyone to get off their medications.

02:02:48

Uh, that's between you and your physician Not my realm I wouldn't you know,

02:02:53

I would imagine it probably puts you in liability too. Absolutely Yeah, absolutely

02:02:59

You know So I do that doesn't mean you can't work in conjunction with their medical doctors.

02:03:05

Oh, he is that needs to be part of it Yeah So with that I want to thank each of you guys for for coming in for for your counseling.

02:03:13

No For for the advice. I think I I hope this is helpful for you as a listener.

02:03:19

Hope that you're you've shared it with someone Uh, I hope that you're looking forward to next week And where we're going to solve all of your marriage issues and parenting issues and in fact

02:03:30

I'll just say this now that next week I will give you a piece of advice that I guarantee if you file if everyone in your household follows one piece of advice

02:03:40

You will never have an argument in your home Just gonna kick everybody out get two homes

02:03:47

No, we will I i'm just gonna we'll tease it for next week So until next week remember to strive to make today an eternal day for the glory of god